At CTAOP, we believe in the power of community-driven change. Through our grants, convenings, and advocacy, we support grassroots organizations that create the spaces, opportunities, and support that young people need to thrive. Reflecting on 2024—a year of resilience and change—we at CTAOP choose to focus on the good. And there was a lot of it. Across Southern Africa, young people and their communities continued to push for progress, advancing youth rights and gender equality with unwavering determination to build a safer, healthier future. Our Program Partners (grantees) spent the year listening, adapting, and leading. They responded to structural, environmental, political, and social realities while staying rooted in the needs of the communities they serve. As CTAOP moved and learned alongside them and the young people at the heart of our work, our shared impact and solidarity grew stronger.
As one Program Partner shared: “CTAOP is a trusted partner that collaborates with integrity and has honest relationships with their partners.”
Here’s a look at our 2024…
PROGRAMMATIC THEMES FROM COMMUNITY IMPACT IN 2024
In addition to supporting local organizations, CTAOP supports young changemakers through our Youth Leaders Scholarship and Youth Leaders Fellowship programs. Built with the ethos that young people within communities are effective drivers of change, both programs aim to support their individual and collective potential.
The Youth Leaders Scholarship (YLS) provides young leaders nominated by CTAOP Program Partners with full scholarships for tertiary studies and wrap-around support to help them achieve long-term success. In 2024, CTAOP supported 20 Scholars. CTAOP also hosted the annual YLS Leadership Summit for all Scholars, allowing them to reflect, learn, bond, heal, and look towards the future.
2024 was also the inaugural year of the Youth Leaders Fellowship (YLF). YLF supports and cultivates the next generation of community leaders through a one-year placement within one of CTAOP’s Program Partners. Young changemakers have the opportunity to develop their leadership skills, get on-the-job experience and mentorship, as well as receive career guidance and wellness support.
Every year, CTAOP hosts our Swidler Summit—a convening of our Program Partners in South Africa—for a week of connection, reflection, learning, and restoration. While we hosted 3 smaller regional Summits in 2023, in August 2024, we brought the whole group of Partners together (and welcomed some new ones) at our second-ever national Summit. Rooted in the belief that to support sustainable systems change effectively, we must also support the well-being of community leaders, the Swidler Summit is all about “care for the carers.” According to our Program Partners, this work is incredibly needed yet rarely funded. Alongside an immense sense of shared values, the week was filled with tailored skills building, deep breaths, a-ha moments, belly laughs, and profound wisdom.
Rooted in the spirit of Ubuntu—our interconnectivity as humans—our work builds connections across oceans, sectors, and cultures. In 2024, CTAOP engaged in speaking engagements, wrote articles and blogs, and hosted summits, workshops, and virtual roundtables. In addition, CTAOP supported our Program Partners with dozens of capacity strengthening and funding opportunities and resources to enhance their work and meet the needs of young people.
Our Program Partners’ WhatsApp group has also become a space for the collective sharing of resources, news, networking and advocacy opportunities, funding and employment opportunities, fostering belonging, and spreading joy.
Each year, Program Partners are invited to give anonymous feedback about how CTAOP is showing up as a funder. This is part of CTAOP’s approach to accountability and an assessment of the value CTAOP brings to our community. Feedback focuses on how effectively CTAOP supports our Program Partners to succeed in progressing towards our shared goals.
The reflections reveal that CTAOP is more than a funder—we are a trusted, empowering, and values-aligned partner. Across the board, Program Partners describe CTAOP’s approach as relational, flexible, and deeply supportive, contributing not only to programmatic success but also to organizational growth and personal transformation.
Perhaps most powerfully, Program Partners shared that CTAOP’s way of showing up creates the conditions for significant and sustainable impact.
We are so grateful for our CTAOP community. Join us in making an impact in 2025!
